


i played the fool (you played the martyr)

by ohlawsons



Series: The Karris Legacy [9]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Post-Star Wars: The Old Republic - The Nathema Conspiracy, other characters make an appearance but it's mostly That Convo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlawsons/pseuds/ohlawsons
Summary: As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.or; Nathema throws some things into question and throws others into sharp focus. Maybe this is a conversation that's long overdue.
Relationships: Theron Shan/Female Sith Inquisitor
Series: The Karris Legacy [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/451492
Kudos: 65





	i played the fool (you played the martyr)

**Author's Note:**

> the biggest thing to note is that zaara (my agent) joined theron. t'sereen is my consular. any other changes to canon are minimal!

Countless things flash through Rei’s mind as Theron falls, but her foremost thought is that she’s glad he’ll be too focused on the pain — if he’s even still conscious — to pay attention to her, because she really doesn’t think he’ll appreciate the things she has planned for Vinn Atrius.

(She recognizes his voice, now, from that first transmission they’d caught back on Odessen, months ago when this had all begun. She’d crushed the holocomm as the message replayed, using the Force to reduce it to mangled metal and a shower of sparks. They were going to find him — the Zakuulan, not Theron; she hadn’t yet acknowledged out loud that Theron was no longer on Odessen — and she’d announced to the war room that she was going to end him in a variety of painful ways.

Lana had been the only one present who hadn’t flinched.)

It’s been nearly six months since Umbara, six months since she’d held back Lana and watched Theron and Zaara walk away. Six months of galaxy-wide broadcasts and half-hearted warnings that she would be bringing him back to Odessen — alive — and six months of carefully nurtured rage and grief and confusion held tight in her chest, growing and festering until a moment like this, a moment where she has somewhere to focus all of this pain and uncertainty.

But she forces that from her mind, for now. T’sereen kneels beside Theron, and Rei knows the former Jedi will do everything in her power to keep him alive; even as Rei stalks towards Atrius, even as she rips the saber from his hands and reaches out to force him to his knees, she can sense as T’sereen begins healing Theron. It’s enough — just as it will need to be enough when she clinches her hands tight, grasping onto Atrius with the Force and gripping, pulling, tugging.

She wants to take her time. She’s _Sith_ , after all, and she’s furious — hands shaking, eyes alight with a ocher burn, the darker edges of the Force wrenched and shaped through her will alone — and she’s spent so long planning this moment, waiting and wishing and _wanting_ , debating the very best way to express all these months of equal parts bitterness and despair.

But Theron would protest, if he were in any shape to protest rather than out cold on the ground behind her, so instead Rei continues to _pull_ , and with one last effort to expend all her pent up energy there’s _release_ and the sundered halves of Atrius’ armor-clad body clatter to the ground.

She suspects Theron would still protest.

But it doesn’t matter. Lana and Zaara are already rushing past her to the console, but Rei almost can’t find it within herself to care; the grief she’s so studiously built up over the months is gone, and its sudden loss leaves her exhausted and swaying on her feet. She joins T’sereen, stands just behind her and watches as the Jedi works, cursing beneath her breath as her hands move over the wound on Theron’s chest.

“He’ll live,” is all she says at first, before standing without warning and hoisting Theron up with her, beginning to carry him back out of the ruins. “I need to get him back to the med bay on the ship. Go save the galaxy,” she adds, jerking her head towards the console.

Rei watches as they leave, eyes trailing them a moment longer than she knows is necessary; letting out a slow breath, she turns back to where Lana and Zaara are now focused on tearing the systems apart, and Rei lets electricity begin to spark and crackle along her fingertips.

* * *

She doesn’t leave him alone once they’re back on the ship, maintaining a stubborn watch over him in the medbay even as Lana needles her about putting together an official statement for Odessen and T’sereen shoos her away, fussing over Theron with a combination of kolto and her own Force healing abilities. Andronikos joins her, too, letting Zaara take the helm so he can sit with Rei instead of sleeping.

“For what it’s worth,” he says after T’sereen leaves to get some sleep of her own, “this isn’t as bad as you were after Thanaton. That was…” he pauses, and there’s a ragged edge to the words even after all these years. “You looked a lot worse than this. And you still pulled through, even with those ghosts toying with you.”

Rei doesn’t bother turning from Theron. “The ghosts kept me alive,” she reminds Andronikos, aware her tone has slipped into something akin to a _pout_ ; she figures she’s entitled to a bit of pouting, really, given the way things have gone recently.

“Sort of.” Another pause. “We didn’t have a Jedi, either.”

The way he shrugs as he says it — as nonchalant as anything — is enough to pull a tired grin from Rei. She rests her head on his shoulder and stays there, content with just his presence, until he leaves to take the helm again and Lana’s back, asking about statements and the Alliance’s official stance on the incident; she’ll humor Lana, Rei decides, and makes an honest effort to type something up but she can’t focus, not really, not with Theron lying so still before her.

They arrive on Odessen long before Rei can muster up anything substantial, so she passes off the datapad to Lana and follows as Theron is taken to the base’s clinic to be looked over by Yvara and the other doctors. It takes more than one pointed threat to keep them from throwing Rei out of the clinic entirely; she gives them space, at least, and paces at the far end of the room while T’sereen relays details of the injury and the treatment she’d already given.

When Yvara finally gives the all-clear — “He’s stable, but he needs time. _Do not_ let him leave this room when he wakes,” is all she says before leaving — Rei takes up the same post as in the ship; she pulls up a chair and settles in, scrolling aimlessly through a datapad despite her attention remaining fully on Theron.

She hasn’t worked out how to feel, not yet; she’d never fully accepted that Theron was even gone, to begin with — as she’d pointed out in the first broadcast after Umbara, everyone who has ever betrayed her is dead — and a hollow ache settles in her chest whenever she allows herself to consider any similar course of action for dealing with Theron.

It couldn’t be betrayal, then, as she’d told Lana for all those months, even as her remaining spymaster repeatedly showed that all evidence pointed to the contrary — until things had begun to unravel, and hints and messages and breadcrumbs began to reveal themselves.

(Lana had refused to see it, all the way up until Copero, and that’s when Rei realized just how hard Lana was taking the betrayal, as well. There was a bond between her and Theron and Zaara, one that went back to Manaan all those years ago, and Rei knew it wasn’t easy to have that bond broken by them both at once.

But then Raina came waltzing onto Odessen with decrypted messages from Zaara that used a code their team had only used when _deep_ undercover, one that only Raina and Lokin could decrypt and, well, Raina was the only one left living. She knew her wife, Raina insisted with more fire and certainty than Odessen had seen since Umbara, and she knew the messages were deliberate. Zaara and Theron weren’t traitors, not really. Not in the truest since of the word.

But Rei thinks it’s that revelation that hurt Lana the most, learning that she had somehow lost the trust of her two closest friends.)

It doesn’t feel good, being right.

Hope and grief and anger have left a hollowed out pit in her stomach, it seems, from holding on to them so tightly for so long, but it doesn’t matter because it’s _over_. He’s back. He’s back, and yet something dark still roils within her mind, because once again this careful back-and-forth dance between them has a looming obstacle — like on Rishi, on Yavin, on Ziost — that she’d made the mistake of assuming was over once they’d reunited on Odessen.

It isn’t opposite sides of the war, this time, not really. She would tear down the galaxy for him, collapse the stars and ignite the planets; it’s her way, it’s in her nature, because all she’s ever known is to fight.

But Theron — he would save the galaxy for her, fight until his last breath to hold it together with his own bare hands, if need be; that’s _his_ nature, isn’t it, to stand in the way of a blaster or a saber — or a god — because while he isn’t a Jedi he shares too many of their damnable values, Rei thinks, and hasn’t that always been the problem standing between them?

Maybe they could both learn to be a little less reckless, but that hasn’t ever been in either of their natures.

She watches the steady, shallow rise and fall of his chest, the raw bruising around his implant, the dark circles beneath his eyes; for a moment, equal parts rage and satisfaction bubble up within her at the memory of, quite literally, tearing apart the man responsible, but it’s quickly replaced by guilt that churns uncomfortably within her mind — because while _this_ isn’t her fault, it easily could’ve been. As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.

They both act without thinking, they rush forward, spurred on by gut feeling and base emotion. She leave destruction in her wake, and he follows behind to clean up the mess and protect her from the fallout of her own actions. Maybe he would disagree — she knows he would disagree — but Rei can’t help but wonder if this would’ve still happened if she were a little more cautious, a little less brash, someone that Theron could’ve trusted this sort of delicate mission to.

But then, she thinks, quiet fondness causing her lips to curl into a soft grin, he was hardly _delicate_ about the mission, either, given the way he leapt into the heart of the cult.

He’d never asked her to be anything but who she already _was_ — and she could be _so much_ , at times, she knew — and Rei doesn’t think she could ask Theron to change, either.

She knows what she signed up for.

* * *

He stirs later that night, and Rei immediately has to reach over to keep him from trying to sit up; she suspects that he would’ve given up rather quickly even without her intervention, if the grimace of pain is anything to go by. She sets her datapad aside, one hand reaching for his before she withdraws; unease and uncertainly settles over her and she hesitates, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“Ow.” He doesn’t try sitting again, but does turn his head just enough to look in Rei’s direction.

“We’re going to have matching scars now,” she informs him, matter-of-fact, brow raising as she glances over him again; the twisted, gnarled scar tissue that crosses her own torso — a gift from her first fight with Thanaton — is a bit messier than Theron’s will be, she suspects, once it heals enough to _be_ a scar. “Though I think yours will heal better.”

He starts to laugh, but the sound quickly gives way to a sharp intake of breath as his grimace returns. “Glad to hear it. Are we back on Odessen?”

“We are. Are you here to stay?” The question comes out more quickly than Rei had wanted, more callous and point-blank than she’d planned, but she doesn’t take it back; she’s been in the dark for too long, spent too many nights alone with nothing but her uncertainty for company. He _owes_ her this one thing, she thinks, just one answered question to atone for six months of lies and reckless deception.

Theron looks away, just for a moment, a few seconds of silence before he reaches for her; it’s nothing but a hint of motion, just one hand creeping to the edge of the medical bed he’s on, but Rei understands and gingerly takes his hand in one of her own. “Yes,” he says, slowly, just as delicately as the way they cling to each other, “if you’ll have me. All I want is to come back to the Alliance. Here.” A beat of silence. “With you.”

He’s watching her with a careful, reserved gaze, as if he doesn’t expect her to say _yes_ , and somehow that cuts Rei as deeply as when he’d left in the first place. She wonders if it’s the pain or the meds, or if he really believes that she cares so little for him that she would toss him aside.

As if she _could_.

“Yes, of course,” she says, swallowing back the way his doubt stings and making a show of rolling her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, if you’re not. And if you _are_ —“ she pauses and leans forward, giving his hand the slightest squeeze, “—then take me with you next time.” He starts to argue but she shakes her head; they aren’t ready for this sort of conversation, not now, not when he’s still too weak to even sit up on his own. “Focus on healing, and we can have this fight later. But I want you to know, Theron, that I love you. So completely and deeply that I… I don’t even know how to make sense of it.” She pauses, places a second hand over his; her voice stays steady, but her chest burns with the intensity of the words, the staggering depth of the way she feels about it. About _him_. With a slow exhale, she forces a carefully measured grin. “Really, it’s cute that you think a little betrayal is enough to get rid of me.”

He says nothing, at first, but his cautious grip on Rei’s hand tightens and she wonders if she didn’t say the wrong thing, opting for a bit of levity to break up the heavy moment. But then he smiles — it’s slow, and hesitant, and almost bitter — and when he speaks his tone is _tired_. “The last thing I wanted was to push you away. If there had been some other way…” He lets out a slow breath, releases her hand. “I didn’t have a choice. For the Alliance, for you…”

The words trail off again and Rei can tell Theron’s fighting exhaustion — or the meds, or both — so she slides her hand back and stands, grabbing her discarded datapad and clutching it in a grip so tight she worries it’ll crack. “Rest,” she chides, taking a step back; if she doesn’t leave now, she doesn’t know that she’ll be able to leave his side at all. “I’ll get Yvara. And I’ll be waiting — _after_ she clears you and you’re released. No sneaking out of here early.”

That, at least, earns her a tired smile, and she pauses in the doorway and watches as Theron’s eyes flutter shut; all the months of bitterness and uncertainty seem so trivial, now that he’s back, and something like resolve — like _certainty_ — settles warm within her bones and she’s _happy_ , she thinks, for the first time in what feels like years.

* * *

She doesn’t avoid him, not necessarily, but the next several days pass in a flurry of frantic activity that leave little time for her to visit.

Rei, Lana, and Beywan work to put together an official statement, first in a quiet memo circulated through the Alliance, then to lengthy reports passed to their Imperial and Republic ambassadors; Arcann takes the liberty of smoothing things over with the rest of Zakuul, but when Rei tries to thank him he waves off the attention — something about knowing Theron and Zaara need people on their side.

Zaara, for her part, seems in a better mood than Rei has ever seen her, walking hand in hand with Raina throughout the base. Theron’s recovery has gone well, to the point where Rei knows Yvara has had to threaten — more than once — to cuff Theron to the bed if he continues to try and bargain his way out of the clinic. She wishes she could visit, more than the handful of times she’s dropped by since their return, but she’s hardly had time to even sleep with as busy as she’s been.

After working to convince the rest of the galaxy that Theron and Zaara had been working under Odessen’s orders — something made infinitely easier by the fact that Rei left them alive, in stark contrast to the long list of others who had betrayed her and faced swift retribution — there were the continued attempts from both Empress Acina and Chancellor Rans to sway the Alliance in their favor, as well as the increasingly worrisome rumors that renewed war looms on the horizon, all punctuated by the stream of reports highlighting the galaxy’s worsening resource shortage. Rei doesn’t mind politics, far from it, but even the verbal sparring with Acina and blunt threats towards Rans grow tiresome, these days.

She misses Theron’s official discharge from the clinic, and only learns about it after an impossibly long day spent in meetings and on calls and trying to wrap her mind around the logistics of working enough farmland to feed the entirety of the Alliance; on a different day, she might have stormed through the base to demand answers, to demand the reason that she wasn’t alerted as soon as he was released. But tonight, she’s not in the mood to fight with anyone, so instead she drags her tired feet through the base towards her quarters — _their_ quarters — only to find them empty.

It doesn’t take her long to find him; it’s late enough that Odessen is growing quiet, and by now Rei knows Theron well enough to have a good idea of the handful of places he’ll sneak off to when he needs a moment to himself. She finds him at the back of the base, leaning against the railing of one of the walkways that leads down to the shallow valley where she and Zaara both tend to land their ships. It’s peaceful, down here, tucked away just out of sight of the hanger bay where the Gravestone used to sit.

Rei doesn’t bother to announce her presence. She stands beside him, hands clasped behind her back as she joins him in surveying the valley that sprawls out before them; Theron acknowledges her with a quick glance, but even just that is enough for Rei to see that his movements are still stiff. “Out early on good behavior?” she asks lightly, brow raising as she suppresses a grin.

“Something like that.” His white-knuckled grip on the railing loosens, but the rest of his posture remains rigid, tense. “Guess I just needed some time to get my thoughts together.”

There’s a comfortable silence, then — at least, it’s comfortable enough for Rei, but beside her Theron is still impossibly still; she reaches for one of his hands, steps closer until she’s pressed against his side, warm and solid and _real_. She isn’t very good at providing comfort, but she can be here, and that’s something. “How did this all even happen?” she asks after a moment, the words more curious than accusatory, eyes locked on their joined hands as her fingers intertwine with his. “How long before Iokath were you _scheming_?” She tilts her head up, brow raised and lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

“In my defense, things got a little out of hand.”

“Mhmm.”

“An old contact of mine got me some leads,” he says, finally beginning to relax beside her; Rei wonders if it’s her presence or the chance to finally speak freely about it all. “I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but next thing I knew I was staring at a way in with the Order.”

“The mysterious Iokath intel,” she guesses.

He nods. “I knew I could convince you to send a team to investigate, and had to hope the Empire and Republic would do the same.” He pauses, frowning, and when he speaks again he sounds a bit sheepish for the first time. “That’s… when Zaara found out. She’s still got friends in Sith Intelligence, and _apparently_ I didn’t cover my tracks as well as I’d thought. But I wanted to make sure I had something substantial before I turned it over to the rest of the Alliance.” Another pause, this time to glance back out over the valley, and when he speaks again his voice is rough. “There was just too much going on to waste time and people on a dead end, but… guess I didn’t really help with the personnel issues.”

Rei shifts her weight, gives a noncommittal wave of her free hand. “There’s always personnel issues. I’ve been dealing with them since long before Odessen. What about the trap on Iokath?” She doesn’t think she really wants to know, but she needs to, doesn’t she? Maybe it doesn’t matter, but she’s tired of not knowing.

“Zaara’s idea.” The simple statement comes out on a rough sigh, slow but not quite hesitant. “Atrius’ plan — I didn’t know it was him, at the time — was for you to get caught in the crossfire. Zaara pointed out it might look… suspicious, if the Alliance came out so far ahead, and I had just enough time to…” He doesn’t say it, doesn’t admit that he was the one to rig the trap that knocked Rei out cold, but the words still hang between them, unsaid. “Atrius assumed you’d make a run for the weapon and try to secure it for the Alliance, but none of us expected you to get so _creative_ about it. Or lucky.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone at that point?” Again, she’s careful to keep her voice even, not too sharp. Not too frustrated.

Theron’s frustration, however, is plain in his tone. “We didn’t even get to meet Atrius in person until after Iokath, which is when we realized that Gemini droid was in our systems. I couldn’t report it at that point. Not without tipping off the Order.” He pauses, jaw working, eyes focused on something off in the distance. “So we met with him, and he told us about the Adegan crystals and Umbara, and… there was no going back.”

She doesn’t ask for details about Umbara.

“So…” He lets out a long, slow breath, turning back to Rei. “Where do we go from here?”

She tilts her head, considers; it’s been a long day, and a longer evening, but she certainly feels as if she’s gotten the answers she’d needed. “To bed, I’d hope,” she decides, giving the slightest tug on their still-joined hands. “It’s been a very long day and I’m very tired of sleeping alone.”

“Just like that?” His brow furrows and his expression shifts to one that’s not quite suspicious.

Rei frowns, fighting back a yawn. “Would you rather we have a big fight about this?” she deadpans. “What you did was stupid and reckless, but you and I both know I’m the last person who should be criticizing rash decisions.” Exhaustion finally gets the better of her and she yawns before continuing, “I’m tired and I miss you, and I honestly do not care about anything else. I just want to move past it.”

“Just like that.” There’s fondness in his voice, now, and even as Rei tries to lead them back to their quarters, Theron pulls her back towards him into an embrace, but even as he wraps his arms around her he’s gentle, hesitant — and she can’t tell if it’s his injury or his guilt that makes him so cautious, even now. “I’m sorry. For all of this. I’ve missed you, too, and I love you, so much, and…” A catch of his breath, a quiet, shaky laugh. “And I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t let me back in.”

She doesn’t respond, not right away, simply content to be held. But then she pulls away, just enough to look up at Theron — at the way he stares at her like she’s the best damn thing to ever happen to him, which isn’t fair, not really, not with the way it makes her heart thrum erratic in her chest even after all this time — and the glib remark she’d had prepared falls unspoken from her lips. “You’re stuck with me,” she says instead, beaming up at him, because it feels _right_ — him, and this moment, and Odessen, all of it.

She would tear the galaxy apart for him, and he would piece it back together for her. And maybe that’s enough, for now.


End file.
